He's here! I am going to attempt to capture the events and emotions during the pickup of our host child last night at the airport. Let's see. We arrived at the airport at 11:00pm to find the other host families in the waiting area. Some of the families from last year's hosting were in the airport lobby with their newly adopted children. This was great as we used one of their kids to translate for us. Everybody was nervous and excited and of course tired. Unfortunately we did not take ANY pictures...bummer.
When the kids arrived, all walking in a single file line following their chaperones, the group got animated. Waves, smiles, and hugs for friends not seen in a long while. We only had about five pictures of our child, but when we saw him our hearts just melted. It's hard to describe the feeling of waiting and then to finally see him. He was chewing gum and wearing a t-shirt, shorts, and black sneakers. After a few anxious moments, they brought him over to us for introductions. Since very few of the people there spoke Russian, the introduction went like this. Here he is! And then we were left to our own imagination and very poor Russian to communicate our names and show him pictures of our sons. After a few brief (and I'm sure caveman-ish) Russian sentences he handed Lisa a doily(sp?). We immediately found a translator to help express our gratitude and to ask where the doily came from. We were told the doily was in his shoes. Lisa didn't care...that doily will forever be in our family. One of the other little boys was given a package of Twix and he gave one of the sticks to our little boy. He promptly split it into three pieces and shared it with Lisa and I. The inability to communicate with words, especially for me, is humbling. You have body language and hand gestures. I wanted to tell him I was happy to see him. How was the flight? Did you sleep? We're gonna drive home in a truck, do you get carsick? Yeah, none of that was spoken. What words I do know I used. However, I'm sure I was asking him if he wanted to play soccer at 12:30 in the morning when I was trying to ask if he liked to play soccer. No wonder he looked at me like I was an idiot.
BTW - against our wills a bit, we did not hug him or hold his hand. We are trying to ease into a trusting relationship. A newborn you hold as much as possible. This guy, we just want him to feel safe to play and we'll set the boundaries.
On the drive home we tried to ask a few questions and when I asked how old he was, I caught the number 7 but then he rattled off a bunch more. I missed it. We almost need to record everything and run it back for the important stuff. When we got home we took a quick tour of the house and introduced him to our dogs. We showed him his backpack of starter stuff which included a Hot Wheel...that he loved. We picked up on the increased volume and the higher inflection of his Russian at this, so we showed him the collection of cars that our boys have. Then I heard Transformers. So we showed him Bumblebee. We spent the next half hour just playin. We were spent, my Russian was exhausted, but we managed to communicate pajamas, potty, and bedtime somewhere around 1am.
The next morning, he slept in, but our little Adam got up at his usual 6:30...yeah. So today's activities included crafts and legos, which I must say, he picked up both very quickly. Especially the Lego. He built the airplane kit one way and promptly took it apart and built a second style airplane. He's got a good head on his shoulders and picks up tasks quickly. We had a breakfast of eggs, bacon, toast, potatoes, pineapple, and watermelon. He ate everything but the watermelon. For lunch, he had a slice of sourdough, cucumber, tomato, and apple slices. We scored again! He ate this too. We took a quick trip to Target to get underwear and socks. Apparently Cars the movie is a big hit in the Ukraine. After the Target adventure, we took all 4 boys to a local park to sweat out some of their energy. The coolest part of the park were the squirrels. Our little host boy spotted one and got all excited, again the speed and volume of the Russian was the clue. He tried to sneak up on it, but that was futile. At one point during the park trip, Adam came over and told me that our guest wanted to play a video game..."he said he wanted too". Who knew my youngest spoke Russian? This afternoon we decided to take it easy around the house. Tyler has been a huge help and I thank God we have him. So far, it appears as if our little guest feels secure. He talks a lot. If I ask a question about what he's doing, I get a full report and then some. It's awesome! Thank you God!
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